


Deadline

by NoImNotObsessed



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Novel, Post-Series, Redemption, Religious Content, Romance, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-01-28 16:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12610380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoImNotObsessed/pseuds/NoImNotObsessed
Summary: Bill Cipher never cared for the duties of being a demon. Torture, stealing souls, et cetera. Unfortunately, his slacking catches up to him one day, and he must put out a certain someone's light before this time next year, or he faces eternal torture himself. But the difficulty's been set to the max when his Boss adds a new obstacle: He's now human.





	1. Chapter 1

Bill Cipher drifted along lazily in the vast emptiness surrounding him. For being a demon who specialized in dreamscapes, his wasn't anything to shake a stick at. Well, only if you ignored the multiple screens that lined the theoretical walls, showing various people from one sleepy little town in particular. Some would call it "stalking", while he called it "important collection of information". But that did not stop him from jumping when he felt a clammy hand touch his triangular form. The demon's surprise faded when he recognized it as another of his species.

"Hey... you." Bill looked over the intruder. While the dream demon had changed his form over time into his infamous yellow triangle, this one had retained its original appearance. Dark rags, that were imaginably once robes, covered the figure with only black eyes staring back. Bill removed his top hat and gave the silk a dusting. "Well, I gotta give you credit for finding the place. Now whaddiya need, I got things to do. I'm busy," he said, turning back towards the screens.

The demon's voice was gruff and low. " _He _wants to see you."__

____

Bill's eye widened and color drained from his figure. He paused for a moment, letting its words seep in. He finally straightened his shoulders. "So, are you just gonna stand there or what?" he growled, knowing this kind of facade would never work on _him _. The imp moved to the side to reveal a tear in his dreamscape, a dark corridor stretched beyond. Heat blasted from the fissure, and with reluctance, Bill convinced himself to float through. Soon afterward, the crack sewed itself back up, and the messenger dissipated.__

______ _ _

The isosceles monster looked about himself, a grimace fixed on his face. The walls were lined with cell doors, and the smell of gore made the air heavy. Wails and pleas accompanied mangled hands grasping towards him for help, but Bill kept his eye fixed forward. He passed several demons along his path, and he could hear them all whispering amongst themselves. A few even had the guts to catcall at him.

______ _ _

"Well, looks like triangle man is back!"

______ _ _

"Is he going where I think he is?"

______ _ _

"If so, he is screwed over, that's sure."

______ _ _

"We might just have a new one to throw into the Pits, eh?"

______ _ _

Bill blocked out their words. The hallway was dank, and quite dim. Only the occasional torch and distant pit of fire lit his way. After what seemed to be an eternity, he came across two ebony french doors. Before he could even knock, a voice bellowed from inside, "William." Bill cringed at the name. Far too formal, he thought. He hesitantly grabbed hold of a sticky handle and gave it a tug.

______ _ _

He faced nothingness. The room was essentially a black hole, a void. Nothing was around for as far as the eye could see except a small stool, a desk, and a grand office chair with its back turned. Bill closed the door behind him as softly as he could. The chair spun around, and in its seat sat what appeared to be an angel, but something was off. Its covered face seemed to grin, and the hands that poked out from the white robes were crippled and burnt. And its voice was the sweetest thing you could imagine. Too sweet to be real.

______ _ _

"Cipher, good to see you, welcome back. You enjoy your time away from work? How was it? Please, sit down," he said, sweeping a hand to the lowly stool. Bill let his eye give the Morning Star a leery glace before he took to hovering above his seat.

______ _ _

"Eh, good to see you too, Lucy." Bill could sense a scowl from underneath the drapes. The all seeing eye continued, "Ah, it was, you know, I got to see some sights. Meet some people."

______ _ _

The pseudo seraph rose its head above Bill in a dominant manner. "It's pronounced Lucifer, thank you."

______ _ _

Bill shook his head, trying to reattain his normal air of pretentiousness. "Oh, you people, you're all so uptight with the proper names. Lucy is so much more fitting."

______ _ _

The king of Hell slammed an angry fist into the desk, causing Bill to jump. The force from the impact shook the robes around the ex-angel's face down, revealing the unholy, burnt remnants of an unidentifiable face. _"Don't play arrogance with me, fool! _You have a single duty to your king, and that is to recruit my Army. We need as many as we can get to ensure my victory and my rightful place over ruler of all Creation." He put his face inches away from the inferior demon's. Death was on his breath.__

________ _ _ _ _

_"You are yet to claim a solitary soul for me, you worthless piece of scum." ___

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bill turned his head away from the verbal onslaught. "You're already self-anointed prince, isn't that enough for one eon?"

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

With a deep breath, the Devil sat himself back down in his throne with his nose pinched. "You know what?" he began, his calming veneer once again in place. "I'll make a deal with you. You just love those, am I right?"

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bill's eye widened. Any deal with Satan was sure to end him. A black finger gestured at him. "I'll give you exactly one year to claim a soul for the good of the Army. And after that I'll let you go about your business." He forcefully grabbed Bill by the arm. Intense heat surrounded the two and the cavern filled with blood-curdling screams. Bill gave a fearful look down at the Pits before having Lucifer whisper to him, "But if you fail, you can join them for the rest of eternity."

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bill was tossed to the ground. He gave a nervous cough before giving his bow tie a tug, a cocky expression on his face. "That's it? This'll almost be too easy!" He was interrupted with a waggled finger.

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

"Uh, uh, uh," Satan softly said. "Like all your deals, there's also a catch. And this one's quite the doozy."

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

The world around Bill fell apart. His vision was impaired, and incoherent sounds and jeering laughter came from all sides. He felt like he was slowly imploding and his form was being stretched and contorted in unnatural ways. He caught one final whisper before he fell unconscious.

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

_**"You will be human." ** __****_

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _


	2. Chapter 2

Ringing. All that existed was the wretched ringing. Slowly, swirls swam into his vision. After a few minutes, they became shapes, and shapes became trees and clouds and grass. Bill contorted as he heaved and wheezed, his lungs filling with air for the first time. He tried opening his eyes again. The world spun around him, but he could feel grass ticking his cheek.

Cheek... He almost forgot. The deal.

Bill bolted upright, trying to ignore the wave of nausea that washed over him. His eyes darted about, trying to keep up with the spinning world. He looked down, trying to move everything in turn. "I've... got legs. Feet, toes..." He pushed himself up more. He lifted up a hand, concealed in a black leather glove. He pulled it off and examined the flesh underneath. Five slender digits extended from his palm, and all was encased in warm, olive brown skin. "Hmm," Bill muttered in amusement. He slipped the glove back on before proceeding to try and stand.

He was a little wobbly on his feet, but at least his vision had steadied to make things a bit easier. His head was pounding, though. He leaned himself against a nearby Birch tree and gave his surroundings a glance. He was in the middle of an overgrown field, probably once used for farming but now deserted. At his feet he saw a dirt path which eventually lead to a country road. He sighed. "Well, no use in just standing here and wasting my year." And with that, Bill hefted his weight off the tree and started walking.

He didn't pay too terribly much to the surrounding scenery, he kept himself busy watching his feet kick up dust. He slipped his hands int his pocket to find one brush up against something. He pulled out a piece of letter paper covered in elegant cursive.

_"Mr. Cipher,_

_I hope that you realize that I made things a bit harder for you for a reason. I believe in your intelligence, but I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if I found you in the Pits one day. I am temporarily stripping you of your demon status. On the bright side, however, you get everything a regular human has: needs for nourishment and shelter, more intense emotions, the ability to die, et cetera. Either way how things work out for you, I'll see you in Hell soon enough._

_You Are Forever Mine,_

_Lucifer"_

Bill scowled at the note before crumpling it up and tossing it over his shoulder. With that out of the way, he soon found his way to a town after a few minutes of walking. He instantly recognized the place and chuckled at his luck of being dumped here. "Oh, Gravity Falls, it is good to be back." A few of the smaller shops were on this side of town, and he decided to go into the closest one. He opened the door to find multiple colorful costumes and accessories hanging stuffed in shelves and hanging from racks. Banners advertizing for the upcoming annual Summerween draped from the ceiling. A woman in her early twenties sat behind the register, texting away on her phone. "What's today?" he called to her.

She blew a strand of purple-streaked hair from her face, not even bothering to look up. "It's Tuesday."

Bill restrained from slapping a hand across his face in frustration. Humans can be so infuriating at times. "No, I mean the _date_ ," he spat through his teeth. "And the year would be helpful, too, now that I think of it." The employee glanced up. "Who wants to know?" Before Bill could reply, though, the girl had taken one look at him and a heavy _thump_ has echoed throughout the store, the woman now out cold on the floor. Bill cocked his head in confusion. He was human now, right? He rushed over to the mirror on the counter to see what had caused her so much terror. He scowled when he saw it.

His left eye was a demonic black, with only a dot of red to act as an iris.

With this being a costume store, Bill decided to find something to cover up his ugly reminder of the job he had to do. He had found a bin of spare costume parts, and it didn't take him long to find a silk eye patch. He tied it over his eye with a defiant tug at the end. He turned his attention back onto the mirror on the cashier's desk. At least old Lucy had the decency to make him attractive by human standards.

His face was made up of sharp features and the same olive skin he had seen back at the field. Contrastingly, his hair fell from the top of his head in some of the most blond locks he had ever seen. He inspected his chin to find even more golden hairs protruding from it to make a fine stubble across his jaw. His gaze finally fell upon his "good" eye. This iris was lacking of any significant color; a gray orb stared back at him. He broke his gaze before long. He gave a small giggle to himself. "I could win someone over for 'the army' just with this face."

Bill had bid his time long enough and was about to leave when he remembered the girl. If she wouldn't tell him when it was, then he'd find out for himself. He plucked her phone easily from her limp fingers and turned it on. The lock screen displayed the date. "June 18". The next time June 18th would fall on a Tuesday was...

"It's 2019," he said to himself. As he exited the shop and started striding along the sidewalk, Bill thought to himself. "Well, it wasn't too terribly long ago I was last here, I suppose. I wonder what's changed." He remembered how he had been particularly been fascinated with the town ever since returning seven years ago. He tried to pull up a memory of the the street he was on for old time's sake, but soon stopped in his tracks. His mind flooded with information, more than he could possibly hope to make heads or tails of. His head started pounding again, and he grasped at his hair, trying to get himself to calm down. His eye began twitching madly in the fight to halt the deluge of data.

His mind emptied itself almost as quickly as it had filled, and to his horror he found only a few out of the hundreds of screens were still flickering, and even then the quality was fuzzy. Bill shook his head angrily and glared at the ground. "You couldn't even allow me my intelligence? It's always something, isn't it. You know, this would be a lot easier if you let me do my job properly." He stomped along the path, accepting that he only had common knowledge to go off on.

Fiddling with the fact that Lucy stripped him of the rest of his powers as well, he paused when he realized the direction he was headed. Several signs around him were advertising for the town's` greatest tourist trap: the Mystery Shack. Bill shrugged. "I might as well." He folded his hands behind his back and stared at the dirt path as he continued on his way. "Now how do you suppose I do this without my powers, hmm?" He could almost hear a voice reply, _"Figure something out, knucklehead."_

"This would be a lot easier if I could enter someone's mind."

_"There are other ways of doing that. It's called basic human psychology, ever heard of it?"_

"Of course I have, don't take me for an idiot."

_"What's the one thing keeping people from the grasp of the Dark One?"_ it interrogated.

Bill thought for a moment, before saying, "Hope. And, well, not being completely ignorant helps."

_"Find someone with this shred of light... and extinguish it."_

Bill's face contorted into a macabre grin. "I know the perfect person. And since we're in the neighborhood, why don't we pop on over for a visit, hm?"

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy, all! From the suggestions of my friends, I've finally decided to post Deadline on this site as well. This will be my first time publishing something here, so forgive me if some things are not perfect. I hope to get better in the swing of things soon. This first chapter here was written back in August 2014, and this whole story has been in the works for over three years. I still have three chapters to go, and if time smiles on me, they'll be finished eventually. And for any of you who follow this on ff, yes, I am the original author, so don't worry!


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